Endurance
by Pantz
Summary: Sometimes, when there's nothing left all a person can do is fight. But Remus has always been a broken soul.


Disclaimer: Everything from HP books belongs to JK Rowling

**Endurance**

She used to be daddy's little girl. She never clung to her mother, but threw a baseball around with her father. Laughed as he awkwardly tried to braid her hair again and again.

He would smile at her with a twinkle in his eyes,_ You're my little princess, you know that?_ He would ask her everyday, knowing she would laugh. Knowing his wife never had the pleasure of seeing her beautiful face light up with a sparkling glow.

He died when she was six. A car crash. A quick funeral in which she hid all day in her closet waiting for him to come and find her. They used to play hide and seek.

She thought the sky cried that day because of her pain.

_Mommy,_ she had whispered when her mother came to tuck her in. _Look Mommy, God is crying for me._ Her mother wiped her tears, swallowed whatever strength she had left so she doesn't rebuke her daughter's thoughts, and turned out the lights without saying goodnight.

She never forgave him for stealing their daughter's love.

That was the first heartbreak she had ever endured. She never as brightly smiled after that. Never laughed until her stomach hurt at her young cousin's jokes. Never begged her mother to plait her hair. She never again touched anything to do with sports.

Well, until magic came into her life.

She quickly became one of the guys. Joked with them in the common room. Played quidditch with them until the sun went down. Thought one time in her seven years of school, _do they even know I'm a girl?_

She kissed three of her best friends while she was at school. One was a dare and sloppy and she couldn't look at Barty for a week afterward. Another one, Richard, was a semester long mistake. Thomas, well him she had thought she loved for the better part of two years.

**In reality, she has never had much luck in love.**

But then, the only people she had for a role model was her mother she did not know how to understand and her cousin Sirius.

When she was young she liked Sirius because he would ruffle her hair and tell her she was beautiful. After her father's death, Sirius was the only person who could make her laugh. The only one to stir any emotion inside of her.

Well, except for Remus, of course.

And maybe this is where her story is thrown into the broken category of a cliché.

He had a sweet smile. That's all her eight year old mind could remember on their first meeting. Sweet lips that curled prettily as he told her that he has been longing to meet Sirius's favorite cousin.

He was seventeen then. Almost a graduate from Hogwarts and ready to survive in the 'real' world she was always hearing so much about.

She had wondered what it was like to be grown up.

She had wondered if his eyes were sad because he was afraid.

She had wondered, nights after, if he ever thought about her.

He never came back after that day. Sirius visited when he had time. He brought gifts. He brought light. He brought his silly friend James Potter who liked to give her chocolate candies and tell her that Sirius lied when he said monsters lived under the bed.

She liked James' smile because it made her laugh. She liked his voice because it was booming and strong and reminded her of her father. She liked his eyes because they were the color of honey and seemed so…nice. Sometimes, though, she looked at James and wished his eyes were more sad.

When she was eleven, they stopped coming. Sirius stopped sending gifts. James never again smiled. And her heart died once again.

This time, the sky didn't cry, but the world _did_.

She knew of course, the James had died. She went to the funeral and looked at his body and wondered how life can just leave a person like him. She wondered if it were a trick, a joke he and Sirius were playing.

But then again, she didn't like to think of Sirius anymore.

Not of his smile. Not of his shaggy hair. Not of the lewd jokes he would whisper in her ear so that her mother could not hear.

Everyone thought he was a bad person. She had tried hard not to believe them.

There was one person in Sirius' life who remained unscathed. She didn't want to, but she wondered if he would try to find her. She wondered if he would come to her, smile at her sweetly, and tell her that it was a mistake.

_Sirius loved James_, she hears him whisper in her dreams.

He never came and when she was fourteen, she stopped wishing he would. By then, she loved Thomas

The next time she saw him, she was eighteen. A young graduate in Auror training wanting to make a difference in the world that seemed to have so many troubles. It was just a glance as she watched him stroll out of the elevator and walk toward her boss', Moody's, desk. It was just by chance that he was evaluating her performance on that _exact_ day, at that _exact_ moment.

_Remus_, she had barely whispered as he neared the desk and looked at her with questioning eyes. His eyes stared at her, asking who she was.

_Don't you remember me?_ She had hoped, silently over the years that he would. That every once in a while when his mind was empty she would fill the space in time and he would wonder, _what ever happened to Sirius' little cousin_?

He obviously thought she would never grow up.

_I'm sorry_, he said quietly with his sweet smile plastered on his face.

_Nymphadora… Well Tonks, you met me once years ago. Were friends with my cousin… Sirius. _She almost didn't say his name.

_Right, Tonks. You look… different_, yet the look in his eyes showed her that to him, she was still a child of eight.

_All grown up_, she offered as he puzzled over her.

He nodded. He looked away. As if looking at her was painful. As if she reminded him of… her nose is very much like Sirius'.

He walked away without a goodbye. She understood. She never got used to _this_ version of the world either.

She joined the Order of the Phoenix when she was twenty- three. It was that year, that exact moment, that life started making sense.

He was innocent, you see. Sirius was innocent.

In her heart, she had always known that to be the truth.

She wondered if Remus was surprised by the truth or if like her, he held on to that possibility as a way to believe. It's hard to imagine for someone truly close with Sirius that he could be capable of such a crime.

If only they had known him.

She sees Remus a few times a month that year, Harry's fourth. He smiles at her. He nods at her. She still feels like an eight year old when he looks at her. And it's at those moments, when her heart yearns for him the most.

Yet, she only ever has the courage to whisper hello.

It's amazing to her and funny to her because at school a boy could never intimidate her. She has always been one of the boys. But Remus, with his sad stare, his air of martyrdom, she acts like a blushing school girl crushing on the famous she will never get to meet.

And she thinks one day, that she may love him.

And then wonders if he could ever love her.

Over a year later, she has her answer. At Sirius' funeral. At the time when all hope was lost. She found him in the crowd. Just standing. Not speaking or shaking hands or even drinking to just forget. He looked like a lost child.

She never thought before that at one time in his life, he could have been young.

_Remus_, she had said when she walked up to him. Her hair still a shocking pink but her eyes a demure brown.

He smiled, but didn't speak. She took his hand.

_I loved him, too, you know,_ she said as he looked away from her. A moment passed and he looked into her eyes and her stomach exploded.

_This is it_, she thought_, this is how he should have looked at me years ago._

He hugged her. He buried his head into her neck and cried. She held him as her own tears fall out of her eyes.

The funny thing was, in that moment, she didn't think of Sirius once.

And then, in the moment of his deepest pain, his hands covered her cheeks and he kissed her.

She tasted salt pouring into her mouth.

She tried, so hard, to keep the happiness from pouring into her stomach.

It was a moment before he pulled away when she realized he didn't stop crying.

_I'm sorry_, he had whispered._ I'm sorry, that was wrong._

_Remus_, she called but he pushed through the crowd and walked through the door.

Childhood dreams are the hardest dreams to kill.

And she couldn't help but think, as his back moved farther and farther away, that he looked so much like her father.

It was raining the night she showed up at his house. Her hair was drenched, her clothing stuck to her body, and the rain flowed down her cheeks as if she's been crying. Her heart was heavy, and she knew the world knew it as well.

She rang his doorbell. Waited for three heavy minutes shivering until she heard him at the door. Her breath caught in her throat and when he opened the door, she wondered how misfortune could so change a person.

_Nymphadora_, he questioned.

_Can I come in? _

_Ye…Yes, of course._ The door opened wide and she shivered in his threshold before he took out his wand and dried her. She smiled,

_I've been thinking about you._ It was the only thing she could think to say.

_Nymphadora…Tonks, the other day, I made a…_

_No Remus, stop, please._ She looked up at him. Her eyes pleading with him and he thought how much of a child she seemed to be. But she isn't. She's nearing twenty-six.

_Since I was a little girl I've thought about you. Why did you never come after they took him away?_ Was it the first time she realized that when she was eleven, her heart broke in more ways then one?

_Tonks, what difference would it have made if I came to see you?_

_You were his best friend. The only one that was left and I couldn't stop wondering if maybe, maybe you would come and make it all okay._

_You were a child back then, Tonks. Still are._

_Would you look at me, Remus? I'm not a child. I wasn't a child then. I was a girl whose world had just fallen apart wondering if the one person who could make it better would come to her._

She thought about crying. Of just letting her emotions go in front of him because it's in this moment, when his eyes were round with surprise and his smile sad and non-existent, that she realized that she has loved him all along.

_Tonks, my best friend had just been accused of murdering two of the people…  
_

_He was my cousin. He was the only person in my life that had mattered. You don't need to explain to me love for Sirius. I've loved him from the moment I was born and that's why I'm here because yet again I was left wondering how… how I can get over losing him and you're the one who comes to mind. _

His breath was sucked in. His eyes looked at her, possibly for the first time, and thought that she's a beautiful girl. A young girl in her twenties just trying to make sense of a world he had long ago given up believing in.

_Tonks, I'm not going to be able to make it all right. Nothing can, I'm no hero._

_You just won't let yourself be one. I need you. _ In that moment, his eyes sad, his demeanor broken, she realized that her dream of him has faded away and all that is left was the man before her. A man who, no matter how stubborn and blind, needed her as much as she needed him.

_What do you want me to do?_

_I want you to love me._ For a moment, she thought she saw something in his eyes. Something to make her believe that maybe, maybe he could love her. Maybe this world would somehow be okay. Yet Remus has always been a broken soul.

_There's nothing left of me Tonks. There's nothing inside of me strong enough to do what you need._

_You talk as if you're dead!_

_Maybe I am._

It amazed her that night, how calm he could remain as her emotions began exploding inside of her. She wondered how a person could surrender to misery without so much has a fight. The look she gave him would haunt his dreams for years.

That night, she read into the words he didn't say. He wasn't willing to love her.

She turned away. He closed his eyes. He never thought he would see her like this, spirit completely defeated. Tonks had always been such a bright light, like Sirius. So much like Sirius. He thinks a lot that that's what kept him away over the years.

And to think, to think her pain was all his fault.

She opened the door, walked into a beautiful night with cool air blowing through her now plain brown air. It was a beautiful night.

**She once thought that when your heart broke, something profound changed within the world.**

**She no longer believes that.**


End file.
